2 Kings 17:31

And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(31) Nibhaz and Tartak are unknown, but the forms have an Assyrio-Babylonian cast. (Comp. Nimrod, Nergal with the former, and Ishtar, Namtar, Merodach, Shadrach, with the latter.) Before Nibhaz the LXX. have another name, Abaazar, or Eblazer (? ’abal Assûr “the Son of Assur”).

Adrammelech.—Comp. 2Kings 19:37. Identified by Schrader with the Assyrian Adar-mâlik, “Adar is prince” (? Adrum).

Anammelech—i.e., Anum-mâlik, “Anu is prince.” Adar and Anu are well-known Assyrian gods.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:24-41 The terror of the Almighty will sometimes produce a forced or feigned submission in unconverted men; like those brought from different countries to inhabit Israel. But such will form unworthy thoughts of God, will expect to please him by outward forms, and will vainly try to reconcile his service with the love of the world and the indulgence of their lusts. May that fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, possess our hearts, and influence our conduct, that we may be ready for every change. Wordly settlements are uncertain; we know not whither we may be driven before we die, and we must soon leave the world; but the righteous hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken from him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Nibhaz and Tartak are either gods of whom no other notice has come down to us, or intentional corruptions of the Babylonian names Nebo and Tir, the great god of Borsippa, who was the tutelar deity of so many Babylonian kings. The Jews, in their scorn and contempt of polytheism, occasionally and purposely altered, by way of derision, the names of the pagan deities. Anammelech is possibly an instance of the same contemptuous play upon words.

Adrammelech, "the glorious king," signifies the sun. The Assyrian inscriptions commonly designate Tsipar, or Sepharvaim 2 Kings 17:24, "Sippara of the Sun." The title "Adrammelech" has not yet been found in the inscriptions hitherto; but it would plainly be a fitting epithet of the great luminary.

The sun-god of the Babylonians, Shamas, was united at Sippara and elsewhere with a sun-goddess, Anunit, whose name may be represented in the Anammelech of the text. The Hebrews, taking enough of this name to show what they meant, assimilated the termination to that of the male deity, thus producing a ridiculous effect, regarded as insulting to the gods in question.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

31. Nibhaz—under that of a dog—that Egyptian form of animal-worship having prevailed in ancient Syria, as is evident from the image of a large dog at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, or Dog river.

Tartak—According to the rabbis, it was in the form of an ass, but others understand it as a planet of ill-omen, probably Saturn.

Adrammelech—supposed by some to be the same as Molech, and in Assyrian mythology to stand for the sun. It was worshipped in the form of a mule—others maintain in that of a peacock.

Anammelech—worshipped in the form of a hare; others say in that of a goat.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak,.... The former of which is represented by the Jews in the shape of a dog, deriving the word from "nabach", to bark, as if it was the same with the Anubis Latrator of Virgil (b), an Egyptian deity; though that is said (c) to have its name from NOeb, which in the Egyptian language signifies "gold", the statutes of it being made of gold; and the latter in the form of an ass, for what reason I cannot say; but the first word, according to Hillerus (d), signifies, "the remote one seeth", that is, the sun, which beholds all things; and Tartak is a chain, and may denote the fixed stars chained as it were in their places; or the satellites of the planets, chained to their orbs:

and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and to Anammelech the gods of Sepharvaim; which were the same with Moloch; which may be concluded, partly from the worship paid them, and partly from the signification of their names; both end with "melech", king, which Moloch also signifies; the first may be interpreted the mighty king, and the latter the king that answers in an oracular way; from the first, one of the sons of Sennacherib king of Assyria had his name, Isaiah 37:36, though the Jews, according to their fancy, represent the one in the likeness of a mule, and the other in the likeness of a horse; and some make the one to be a peacock, and the other a pheasant (e); the Septuagint version puts the article before them in the feminine gender, excepting the two last, taking them for she deities, or leaving the word "images", to be understood.

(b) Aeneid. l. 6. So Ovid. Metamorph. l. 9. Fab. 12. ver. 689. (c) Jablonski apud Michael. Obs. Sacr. Exercit. 4. p. 66, 67. (d) Ut supra, (Onomast. Sacr.) p. 859. (e) Vid. Kimchium in loc.

Geneva Study Bible

And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

31. And the Avites [R.V. Avvites] made Nibhaz] Of Nibhaz (for which the LXX. gives a very different word, Ἐβλαζὲρ) nothing is known with certainty. The Jewish commentators explain the word as connected with a root signifying ‘to bark’, and say that the idol was a human figure with a dog’s head. The dog was worshipped, or rather some divinity represented with a dog’s head, by the Egyptians. And the want of any better information forces us to be content with supposing that the explanation of the Rabbis may be correct. The varied form of the name in the LXX. seems however to throw doubt on the form Nibhaz.

and Tartak] The same Jewish tradition represents Tartak as worshipped under the form of an ass. But there is very little evidence that such a form was used anywhere as a representation of a divinity. The ass in hieroglyphics is the symbol of the Egyptian Typho, but there is no proof that Typho was worshipped under this form. Others suggest that the word is of Persian origin and signifies ‘intense darkness’. Thus they arrive at the idea that Tartak represents the planet of ill-luck.

the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire] This was a species of Moloch-worship, and the names given to the divinities indicate this. Adrammelech is explained as the male power of the Sun, and Anammelech as the female power. So that the worship of the Sepharvites would be that of the Sun-god. This agrees with what Berosus (Frag. 7) says in explanation of the name Sippara, which is identified with Sepharvaim. He calls it ἡλίου πόλιν, the city of the Sun.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 31. - And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak. "Nibhaz" and "Tartak" are very obscure. The Sabians are said to have acknowledged an evil demon, whom they called Nib'az or Nabaz (Norberg, 'Onomastieen,' p. 100); and Tartak has been derived by Gesenius from the Pehlevi Tar-thak, "hero of darkness;" but these guesses cannot be regarded as entitled to much attention. We do not know what the religion of the Avites was, and need not be surprised that the names of their gods are new to us. The polytheism of the East was prolific of deities, and still more of divine names. Nibhaz and Tartak may have been purely local gods, or they may have been local names for gods worshipped under other appellations in the general pantheon of Babylonia. And the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. The god principally worshipped at Sippara was Shamas, "the sun." It is probable that "Adrammelech" (equivalent to adir-melek, "the glorious king," or edir-malek, "the arranging king") was one of his titles. Shamas, in the Babylonian mythology, was always closely connected with Anunit, a sun-goddess; and it is probably this name which is represented by Anammelech, which we may regard as an intentional corruption, derisive and contemptuous. 2 Kings 17:31

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Of the idols of the Avvaeans, according to rabbinical accounts in Selden, l.c., Nibchaz had the form of a dog (נבחז, latrator, from נבח), and Tartak that of an ass. Gesenius regards Tartak as a demon of the lower regions, because in Pehlwi tar - thakh signifies deep darkness or hero of darkness, and Nibchaz as an evil demon, the נבאז of the Zabians, whom Norberg in his Onomast. cod. Nasar. p. 100, describes as horrendus rex infernalis: posito ipsius throno ad telluris, i.e., lucis et caliginis confinium, sed imo acherontis fundo pedibus substrato, according to Codex Adami, ii. 50, lin. 12. - With regard to the gods of the Sepharvites, Adrammelech and Anammelech, it is evident from the offering of children in sacrifice to them that they were related to Moloch. The name אדרמּלך which occurs as a personal name in 2 Kings 19:37 and Isaiah 37:38, has been explained either from the Semitic אדר as meaning "glorious king," or from the Persian dr, ‛zr, in which case it means "fire-king," and is supposed to refer to the sun (see Ges. on Isaiah, ii. p. 347). ענמּלך is supposed to be Hyde (de relig. vett. Persarum, p. 131) to be the group of stars called Cepheus, which goes by the name of "the shepherd and flock" and "the herd-stars" in the Oriental astrognosis, and in this case ענם might answer to the Arabic gnm equals צאן. Movers, on the other hand (Phniz. i. pp. 410, 411), regards them as two names of the same deity, a double-shaped Moloch, and reads the Chethb סכרים אלה as the singular הסּפרום אל, the god of Sepharvaim. This double god, according to his explanation, was a sun-being, because Sepharvaim, of which he was πολιοῦχος, is designated by Berosus as a city of the sun. This may be correct; but there is something very precarious in the further assumption, that "Adar-Melech is to be regarded as the sun's fire, and indeed, since Adar is Mars, that he is so far to be thought of as a destructive being," and that Anammelech is a contraction of מלך עין, oculus Molechi, signifying the ever-watchful eye of Saturn; according to which Adrammelech is to be regarded as the solar Mars, Anammelech as the solar Saturn. The explanations given by Hitzig (on Isa. p. 437) and Benfey (die Monatsnamen, pp. 187, 188) are extremely doubtful.